Way Forward with 50% Rule Remains Murky in MCPS as More Students Complain of Lack of College Readiness

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had two very different kids go through MCPS. My high performer never got below a 50% and the rule did not affect her experience. My dyslexic kid did have some low grades and I think the 50% rule benefited him. He was able to still pass courses. I mean it is still an F. You can not just keep getting Fs and have a successful semester. He went to college and did not have any issue understanding that different rules applied.

Why could he not do a senior year but could do it a year later? Seriously interested in your response.

[Anonymous]

This article is about students who graduated in 2022 being unprepared for college. No sh!t Sherlock. That class didn’t just have the 50% rule for an “attempt”. They had 50% as the minimum for all assignments, attempted or not. The system was just trying to get kids graduated during the chaos of the pandemic and virtual year.

They backed off required 50% minimum the following year and allowed 0s, provided there were multiple attempts at communication. Then last year the policy was officially revised allowing 0s, but an opportunity to allow makeup work for 50% credit.

Wait for another year or two to see whether more recent students are faring better in college, at least with respect to understanding that they gave to turn in work.

They’ll still be failing more than they used to, but that’s due to the overall degradation of student initiative over the past 10 years, and a topic for another thread.

[Anonymous]

None of our teachers do it anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had two very different kids go through MCPS. My high performer never got below a 50% and the rule did not affect her experience. My dyslexic kid did have some low grades and I think the 50% rule benefited him. He was able to still pass courses. I mean it is still an F. You can not just keep getting Fs and have a successful semester. He went to college and did not have any issue understanding that different rules applied.

Why could he not do a senior year but could do it a year later? Seriously interested in your response.

A few bad assignments in HS did not mean he could not do it ! He had struggles in college too. In one case he has to retake a class. I am not sure that was the best use of his time but it got him through (and graduated on time due to APs). In general he found more support in college then at mcps.

[Anonymous]

You cannot talk about "overall degradation of student initiative" without speaking to the grade inflation that is the calculation of semester grades (the old A + B = A or B + C = B nonsense). Absurd. Teens are smart enough to game the system. Make the system make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You cannot talk about "overall degradation of student initiative" without speaking to the grade inflation that is the calculation of semester grades (the old A + B = A or B + C = B nonsense). Absurd. Teens are smart enough to game the system. Make the system make sense.

Would A + B = B make sense, though? They either round up or down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is BS. Create a Syllabus. Distribute it the first day of class and upload to Canvas. Include you due date/deadline rules and any retake rules. List the times teacher is available for support and other resources that may be helpful to students. Teach. If you notice that the greater majority of the class is clearly missing something, adjust. If you notice that a student is consistently failing or suddenly failing, inquire if there are any problems and suggest how to resolve. Give the appropriate grade. Administrators support the above.

Done.

+1 A syllabus for high school classes would be tremendous! My kid, who was challenged in world language, so wanted to know topics to study, went to the teacher weekly on Tuesday, and the teacher could not always say what would be happening for the rest of the week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is BS. Create a Syllabus. Distribute it the first day of class and upload to Canvas. Include you due date/deadline rules and any retake rules. List the times teacher is available for support and other resources that may be helpful to students. Teach. If you notice that the greater majority of the class is clearly missing something, adjust. If you notice that a student is consistently failing or suddenly failing, inquire if there are any problems and suggest how to resolve. Give the appropriate grade. Administrators support the above.

Done.

+1 A syllabus for high school classes would be tremendous! My kid, who was challenged in world language, so wanted to know topics to study, went to the teacher weekly on Tuesday, and the teacher could not always say what would be happening for the rest of the week.

Yes. The fact that most high school teachers are so behind that they don’t know what assignments will be covered and due later that week is sad. I believe this is due to them not having the planning time they keep asking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot talk about "overall degradation of student initiative" without speaking to the grade inflation that is the calculation of semester grades (the old A + B = A or B + C = B nonsense). Absurd. Teens are smart enough to game the system. Make the system make sense.

Would A + B = B make sense, though? They either round up or down.

They shouldn't combine quarter grades into whole semester grades at all. There's no point except loss of information.
If quarter grade are so important, then semester grades should be removed.

If it's important to make everyone have the same GPA because GPA is a trash concept, then get rid of overall grades entirely.

Or just keep the current system, where students who don't want to work harder don't have to work harder, and let it pressure colleges to find meaningful ways to evaluate admissions instead of GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem was kids basically refusing to do work or submit assignments since they knew they would still pass with a D if they just turned a few in. Now teachers can give a zero% immediately if a student does no work. Then just email home once. No 3 attempts BS requirement or requirement for 2 way communication that parents can ignore.

Ok they pass with a D. They are likely not going to college with a D average. If a kid is doing no work let them finish with a 1.0 and MCPs can focus on the kids who bother to do their work. I do not care if those kids are getting Fs or Ds. I do care about the kids who generally do their work but occasionally mess up and can succeed over the course of the semester by getting a 50 as opposed to a 30. If that kid takes a whole year of college to realize their professors do not have a 50% rule, it is on them. I will add that both my kids but all kids of boosts in college. Not the 50% rule, but drop your lowest quiz, retake 1 test, hand in 2 hws late. All kind of things. One was at an ivy.

Yes, even the athletes have figured out how get better averages by dropping outlier scores from performances.

[Anonymous]

I had heard they discontinued this over a year ago. If some people choose to use it I guess that's their choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot talk about "overall degradation of student initiative" without speaking to the grade inflation that is the calculation of semester grades (the old A + B = A or B + C = B nonsense). Absurd. Teens are smart enough to game the system. Make the system make sense.

Would A + B = B make sense, though? They either round up or down.

They shouldn't combine quarter grades into whole semester grades at all. There's no point except loss of information.
If quarter grade are so important, then semester grades should be removed.

If it's important to make everyone have the same GPA because GPA is a trash concept, then get rid of overall grades entirely.

Or just keep the current system, where students who don't want to work harder don't have to work harder, and let it pressure colleges to find meaningful ways to evaluate admissions instead of GPA.

Sure, because it isn't important what kids learn in school just that they are miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot talk about "overall degradation of student initiative" without speaking to the grade inflation that is the calculation of semester grades (the old A + B = A or B + C = B nonsense). Absurd. Teens are smart enough to game the system. Make the system make sense.

Would A + B = B make sense, though? They either round up or down.

Everything should be done on percentages across the board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot talk about "overall degradation of student initiative" without speaking to the grade inflation that is the calculation of semester grades (the old A + B = A or B + C = B nonsense). Absurd. Teens are smart enough to game the system. Make the system make sense.

Would A + B = B make sense, though? They either round up or down.

Don’t round a letter grade but a percentage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot talk about "overall degradation of student initiative" without speaking to the grade inflation that is the calculation of semester grades (the old A + B = A or B + C = B nonsense). Absurd. Teens are smart enough to game the system. Make the system make sense.

Would A + B = B make sense, though? They either round up or down.

They shouldn't combine quarter grades into whole semester grades at all. There's no point except loss of information.
If quarter grade are so important, then semester grades should be removed.

If it's important to make everyone have the same GPA because GPA is a trash concept, then get rid of overall grades entirely.

Or just keep the current system, where students who don't want to work harder don't have to work harder, and let it pressure colleges to find meaningful ways to evaluate admissions instead of GPA.

Or we could have plus/minus grading which would allow for more nuanced averaging between marking periods.

For example, A + B+ = A but A + B-= B+

The fact that our grades are so flat with no room for degrees is a problem.